Reframing AnxietySample

Day 1: Using Scripture to Engage—Rather Than Avoid—Anxiety

When teaching my counseling classes, I often discuss with students the messages they’ve received from the church about mental health concerns. Some of these messages are encouraging and supportive. Others report that mental health wasn’t talked about in their church aside from a strong admonition against mental health struggles. Students often report receiving some form of message from a church or faith‑based setting that mental health struggles are a result of a spiritual issue, such as sin, spiritual immaturity, or lack of prayer. Many students observe that anxiety is especially prone to being assigned as only a spiritual issue.

Anxiety does affect our spiritual life, but I’ve noticed a pattern. When discussed from a faith standpoint, anxiety is often oversimplified and minimized. When one small phrase from Scripture, often taken out of context, is used to dismiss a person’s experience of anxiety quickly, it is not helpful. Doing so does not adequately engage either the person or Scripture.

When the experience of anxiety is oversimplified, we receive the message, “Stop it. Ignore it. Don’t let yourself feel it.” This response slams the door on the opportunity to take this emotion and the accompanying thoughts and behaviors before God with a willingness to examine what this anxiety is communicating to us. It is a form of avoidance, and we want to avoid avoiding when it comes to anxiety. Anxiety could be signaling a need for more sleep, a visit to the doctor, space to grieve, or the need for healthy coping skills to get through a tough time. Whatever it may be signaling, anxiety gives us the opportunity for self‑examination.

Another problem with using Scripture to avoid is shame. Shame sends us into hiding from one another. We wear a mask that says, “I’m okay.” We don’t let others see our struggles. We lose our opportunity for vulnerability in community with others. How can we bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) if we don’t even know their burdens?

Scripture is essential to apply to all of life, including our emotional experiences (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We can glean both principles and practical strategies from Scripture.

Let’s use Scripture to engage rather than avoid our experience of anxiety.